The Nigeria Football Federation has written Confederation of African Football demanding that the AFCON 2021 qualifier between Nigeria’s Super Eagles and the Squirrels of Benin Republic scheduled for November 13 in Uyo be played on Thursday, November 14.
According to Completesports.com, the NFF is also requesting that CAF also approve 5pm kickoff instead of the 8 pm earlier fixed for the match, insisting that the request for time change was over security concerns.
The federation in the letter to CAF is asking for the game to be played a day later than the original schedule to enable Super Eagles players who are mostly based in Europe enough traveling time after their weekend games.
An executive committee member of the NFF who confirmed the development to Vigil360 said
“Our team will have only one day to train if the match holds on Wednesday, November 13 since the players can only arrive Monday and Tuesday morning and will only be able to have one training session before the match day. But if we play the next day, we might have three training sessions.
“As for reason why we asked for kickoff change, this is necessitated by security concerns. If the match is played by 8 pm, it might stretch late into the night and will require more security attention.”
